Apologies if this is the second time you are getting this, but I noticed a slight difference in email addresses, so I thought I'd shoot directly to my pal Alex who helped me with an earlier issue. Let me begin with a big hearty thanks! I've enjoyed becoming one of your Local Experts, but unfortunately I have three problems with my listings:

I have tried several times to upload my picture located in a folder on my hard drive, but still there is none at my published online profile. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just a case of my impatience? Does the picture need to already be online, and therefore have an active URL attached to it? My Digital City or hometown is not listed on my profile. There is no entry space on my profile interface to boast a "hometown" while my Digital City entry in the profile is not published in the public listings area.

There is one review clustered with mine, that is not authored by me. That would be the review titled: This is Italian? (Olive Garden) However, the writer did capture my sentiments for this chain, almost word for word were I to write one, so I am not particularly upset by the intrusion of a foreign reviewer in my own cluster, but I thought it only polite to point this out since the reviewer may be missing the review from her cluster.

Yesterday I was an entrenched, quite popular writer of style in the Washington DC Top 10 with a featured review on the front page (now THAT rocked!), and today I am poof! gone! Seems like some of the other reviewers' numbers have been retrofitted as well, so I presume there is a system-wide problem that's taking quite some time to fix.

I have really enjoyed this program. Hope I didn't get the boot for some odd reason I couldn't possibly fathom. I even got a tee shirt. Hope that shirt wasn't a buyout because I want my texts back.

Anyway, this is just a friendly alert. Trust things will get smoothed out over the course of the day.

Gabriel

heya, sorry i didn't get the shirt out before the holiday. assuming from the
line above your wife is a local expert too....so i included an extra t-shirt
for her..if she's not, she can join 😛 I also included an extra one hoping
you'd encourage/bribe a friend to sign up as well.

Greetings JimNo answer at your office this morning, but I've researched the AOL proprietary protocols, and have concluded that once you have established the INCOMING directory, we can get started. I cannot access your utilties or upload buttons at this time (read below in the "TO UPLOAD A FILE to another member's FTP space" section, if you are uncertain what I am addressing). Of course, I am perplexed how Aaron has worked your site without this incoming directory in place. The most obvious answer is that he knows your password as an AOL insider. I also don't like the way he has set up the site with regards to directories, and would prefer, as you've also suggested, to start from scratch.

You know, after looking at this site a bit closer, it is rather simple, and can probably be done at around $500 if you settle for an HTML solution to your trivia quiz instead of Java, and if you avoid frames but opt for simple redundancy in appropriate places on your pages. I'd recommend the avoidance of frames. The same look can be accomplished with less complexity, and this serves both YOU in cost savings and potential visitors who may not have a framesworthy web browser, in nasty machine crashes or blank screens.

I see no problem in finishing your site in two days once all the preliminaries are out of the way. But for this to run smoothly, I must have access (YOU MUST CREATE THE INCOMING DIRECTORY) and a check for at least half the amount due. I will post the WireDoctor on the iMote site until you have signed off on the work, and have paid the remainder due, then the site will be transferred to your AOL account. Original graphics (animated and static) are the big money items, but my policy is to guarantee you will LOVE the $800 solution. Less flash and glitter shave your costs down to $500. It will still look professionally done, but will be slightly less graphics intensive.

Jim, let me be honest. My contracts are usually in the $2-3K range. Your job is smaller than what I usually accept, but your web vision is both interesting enough and complex enough to intrigue me so that I am willing to accept your business at somewhat lower rates. If you agree that you wish to sign on with Graphic Solutions Ink Systems, please call me to confirm the level of design you wish. And as I said last night, regardless of your decision, I look forward to having an outside electrical outlet installed.

One other thought, I think that YOU will have to transfer the site from the incoming directory to the default directory in order for it to be accessed by the general public. Of course this would be unnecessary, if I worked directly with password access, but for your own security since you will be handling the updates anyhow, I (and AOL policy) recommend you not give out your password since you still need to learn how to transfer files in order to keep the WireDoctor site refreshed.

What in hell are you talking about... don't you like my "longputter" address name? I thought you were my friend! No offense meant...just tweaking a good friend. Thanks for your suggestion about switching from AOL's native lines to a TCP/IP dial in line. I'll give it a try, hopefully this will fix the problem. Explain how you lowered the AOL monthly fee from $19.95 to $9.95. I think that is about the only way i will stay with them. My computer is a Mac Performa 630 CD with 36 RAM. I do have a Global Platinum Telaport Fax program, but it works perfectly. I've had no conflict problems of any kind and have been using it for almost two years so my problem must stem from something else.

Yes your still in the loop for designing a home page for our steel company. Things have been moving so fast with them that we've not had a chance to follow up, but we will take another look at it shortly. I'll keep you advised. My best to your beautiful bride, Sue.

Date: Thu Oct 9, 1997 9:01:35 AM
From: Gabriel Thy

Hello old friend,

It's been some time since we last heard from you. Trust all is roses and good health in the Chaffee household. Owen, perhaps you heard through the grapevine that Alcalde & Fay has just completed the initial phase of its Internet presence, and will soon have Internet E-mail capabilities thanks to our money-saving recommendations.

The Horsehead Erasure

Our company, Graphic Solutions Ink Systems, was awarded the web design and maintenance contract for Alcalde & Fay. Our own commercial web site is located here. Owen, since you were one of the eager early birds to embrace E-mail several years ago, I'm inclined to think you are also savvy to the potential of a professionally designed web site to help build a lasting corporate community with higher visibility, expeditious communications, and integrated management, while keeping pace with the competition with perceptibly enhanced revenues over the long haul as the Internet moves from novelty to must-have technology in business.

While not privy to any specifics, we understand that you operate several successful businesses, and could quite conceivably profit from a strategically-designed and managed web site. Graphic Solutions Ink Systems seeks to appeal to the well-established Owen Chaffee business sense for the opportunity to discuss this matter in more depth at your earliest convenience. Perhaps you already have a site, perhaps you do not. Whatever your current situation, I do believe that we can offer a more competitive service. Shouldn't we chat?

You know it's funny having this wacky schedule while possessing a revolutionary's mindset. Just to see what happens, I'm now floating propaganda around the workplace to mobilize interest in restructuring the schedule set-up. And though I'm selling it on a number of levels, the motivation is clearly to serve my own best interests. But I'm not counting on success in a hardline status quo atmosphere where almost all of my co-workers have held their positions for many years. But what have I got to lose? My intent is still to hunt for new work starting Monday anyway & that effort wouldn't be diminished even if I were permitted to make my own schedule precisely what I wanted it to be. After all, by taking this job (virtually out of desperation), I had to accept about a $400 a month net paycut. And I had already been precariously living paycheck to paycheck before.

Seeing as how my timetable appears, for what that's worth, it would appear that my next clear window for a 9am PST online chat on a weekday won't be until Thursday the 8th. This Saturday or Sunday would work for me too. Keep in mind that I'm still rather ignorant to this online chatting stuff. So it may be a good idea for you to give clear directions to me on how to find you. As it is, even when I know where I'm going, I'm bound to get temporarily misplaced. So guide me the best you can so I don't have to explain how I ended up in a chatroom with Libyan terrorists planning some bombing attack on an elementary school in Pittsburgh. Kenny

Okay. Let's shoot for Sunday, 9AM PST. Simply log on. I'll do the same. I'll attempt to find you by performing a search of your screen-name via the FIND MEMBERS ONLINE feature of AOL. If you [Kahliopepe] are online in a chatroom, AOL will tell me in which room you are nested. If you are not in a chatroom, it will confirm that, and then suggest I use INSTANT MESSAGING to contact you. After I write and send you an IM, you will have a screen pop up filled with text I have just mailed to you. You then can respond to the IM by typing in the appropriate cell and then hitting the send button. That's the simplest way to make contact since like I wrote earlier, it's been ages and several upgrade versions of AOL software since I've really spent any time there. Once we've got the INSTANT MESSAGE gig down so that we can exchange logistics details and further instructions, we'll navigate from wherever we are to a private or public chat room to resume our chatfest. I'll try to do some scouting prior to the appointed hour, but I may not get around to it. No biggie though. Just get online. I'll do the rest, and try to explain things along the way.

No doubt it was tough taking such a big hit in the wallet, in desperation no less. It may be as rare as an Atlanta Braves World Series Championship in the 1990s but perhaps you'll walk into some good luck in this latest approach to equity in the job market . . .

I'm anxious to hurl a load of questions at you, but I reckon I should hold back until we can greet each other online. I'm looking forward to it.

WELL...since everyone else is spilling all in declaring the spikes and spokes of their past and present journalkeeping habits, I may as well add my own finer edges, having kept a rather informal text of this sort rather irregularly over the years in old-fashioned notebooks and later, on disk.

After giving up the traditional journal task several times I've come to recognize that I don't really appreciate the form as much as I do the E-mail discipline. I suspect my need for instant gratification by way of external response, plus a general distaste for maintaining secrecies result in a preference for calling the bluff on private thought processes and identify the latter form as my own favored form of natural journal. Fortunately for me in this case, ever since the spring of 1992 when I first logged on to AOL and Prodigy, I've always had at least one equally prolific correspondent with whom I have been able to vent any issues of the hour mixed with any general ponderances which the modern mind might tend to address. And presently I can boast that "pour moi" this softly fluctuating group buoyed by Steve Taylor and Lynn Landry in a bicoastal cheek to cheek is indeed the golden age of "writing to keep writing" form the journal has traditionally meant to its creators.

That said, of course all my journals of the past and E-mail are in custody, hardcopies alphabetized and filed according to the name of my correspondent. My computerphobe but oh so revolutionary pal Len Bracken and a few other hanging-wit know-it-alls have taken me to task for my energies focused in this area. Death by explanation. What is that? Why must I explain every detail of the literary approach to those who taunt me as if they even care. My autodidactic education speaks for itself, and so I have no qualms gathering forces by exploiting my own preparatory habits. There's nothing really original about it. Writers major and minor will be writers great and small whether and wherever they write tedious volumes or short declaratives. Style is always experimental until it sticks and becomes habit. I really don't cotton to these arrogant tones toward E-mail and my own exercises in linguistic riffing, but to utilize a line from a long forgotten poem I once wrote might be a propos:

"...Cos suddenly there was a flood of instant messages, and I discovered that I was almost the only woman left." Jennifer

Quite the norm, Jennifer. Men are such worms. Dirt is our life, say I. Eight hours a day, five days a week, years of clawing, spent in the dirt, clay, and mud rubs off on ya, and its cough gets sucked into the bloodstream where it pollutes the whole body, including the eyes, the nostrils, the mind. In the ever controversial Book of Genesis, it is written somewhere that God cursed the ground. Having spent more than a gentleman's share wallowing, hiking, muscling through the dirt and the mud, pounding nails, hubs, stakes, whacking brush, thorns, poisonous vines, yellow jacket hives, wading stiff rivers, armpit-high flood zones flooded, half-frozen creek beds, and the shitty bowels of sewage trunk systems, I came to believe it, too. Blue collar men who have remained holy are my heroes. The same for their women.

"So today I did some reading and went to a park, waded in a creek, and hiked to Taughnannock Falls. I felt restored enough to leap back online. Read your missives (by the way may I also say that i'm also amused by your notes and often sit here chuckling and grinning...LOLI'm learning the lingo)"

Cool with an asterisk. Re-read preceding paragraph of mine. But still wish I were there sharing the exhileration. Chicklet in wading boots, vroom. And perhaps I shall soon, if you really want me to be, there, with you, me, old ugly bulging me. Psychological exploitation is such a two-way street. Jen, you make such a big deal about bodily architecture sometimes it's like you are nailing a mouthful of piranha spikes into my brain.

About the comment I made in nyc about cybersex and communications....What did I say?....You know me, mind like a sieve...help me plug the holes and refresh my faulty memory."

That was it. It was a oneliner tossback. You bubbled forth with that typical edge in your voice indicating that, well, your exact words were: "Hey, you and I could go into the cybersex business together" after I was telling you what some folk were doing already with the newest Internet tools. Your software. My hardware. Thatsweetbones was a double entendre. Your body and sexual instincts serving as the software, i.e. the program matter. Tools and expertise to operate the technology of course would be mine (and Sue's, together with her bookkeeping talents no piss in the wind either). I didn't really respond beyond a hopeful facial expression because I hear so much throwaway promises out of the mouths of friends and would-be friends that I have grown cold to the hearing. Enter the Steve Taylor arguments. I am still a PowerMac away from exploring the teleconferencing protocols, but Sue promises one any month now, and then I will be eager to test that warm, metallic dream of George & Judy Jetson emerging. How justified am I in considering your words worth the air they rode in on...

These last few thoughts may help you, although I know you already do understand my insistence in finally shaking off that "go with the flow" attitude, and finally doing things MY way, THY way...and why Jack last February, and now Steve Taylor have been early inheritors of my refusal to suffer leisure idiots their pleasure as they invade what many have perceived as my good nature and fair household...

"Sorry that I can't make it down this summer...poss. in the fall (depending on school) or at least at winter break when I shall again be financially sound thanks to the great American pastime of accumulating debts which can't be repaid."

I will count on it. But then the years roll by, and still no Jennifer. You know Sue and I both love you with everything we have. Now baby don't take this the wrong way (is there a right way?), but we, okay, moi more than she, have long fantasized that you would eventually end up cohabiting with us, here, there, anywhere, the three of us, a sustainable family unit, the final solution to each of our unique problems, doing something, doing everything. Both general and specific prophecies encourage it, but nothing can or will happen until the situation, or any situation for that matter is ripe. This is the curse of my way of life. I am always seeking signs, knowing nothing myself except that which is given to my understanding through an intricate matrix of synchronicities and undismissable, unmistakeable directives. Meanwhile we all individually, and collectively go about our lives, sorting out ourselves from our enemies, our lusts from our loves, and our intelligences from our stupidities. I am probably overstepping the laws of fate by mentioning this to you even at this juncture, but you came through with such flying colors on that last note I can't help myself. Frankly I don't feel I have much more than a decade left. Whether this is a psychotic form of dementia or hypochondria on my part is uncertain. What is certain I am inner directed with an urgency I have never had before except in late childhood and teens. The mobius strip of life continues to echo with incidents I recall charging up those hills of time, and the dimming flush I feel in my ever-aching head inclines me to believe my assessments are correct. Now I am not relating all this to you out of some sort of feeble attempt for sympathy, for I know the opposite effect of sheer repugnancy would more likely be the case. I am simply saying things to you I have said to Sue, and I tremble as I presume God (whatever) has placed these thoughts into my being. These last few thoughts may help you, although I know you already do understand my insistence in finally shaking off that go with the flow attitude, and finally doing things MY way, THY way...and why Jack last February, and now Steve Taylor have been early victims of my refusal to suffer leisure idiots their pleasure as they invade what many have perceived as my good nature and fair household...

BECAUSE I SEE MYSELF IN UNIVERSAL TERMS. But I am here. Polaris is there. Neither slave nor executioner (Camus). American society forces most of us male and female into both roles in a wishy washy fashion without benefit of accreditation, and so most of us muddle through unaware of the implications as we dogpaddle through this soul-fracturing sea of emblematic garbage government, and frankly, its frisky twin sister, popular culture, have invested in us.

"As to a trip northward on your part and the needed promise on my part...let me come over all coy and noncommittal, voicing my uncertainties, my fears as to what such a promise would entail. Love. Jennifer."

The creation process is all I know, anymore. So much has been put behind me. I am incapable of well-rehearsed thrusts into the unknowable future. Could never memorize a poem or rock lyric or bible scripture as a matter of principle, but I do know I am fair and sensitive, good to the last drop even should the confusion of others brings pain and despair either to me or them, or both. I expect nothing from others, but I put much aspiration out there in the ether to be considered. By seeking to bring order out of chaos and sustain order on the social plane (and in this set I include home & hearth) does not necessarily infer that I endorse rigid thought processes when artistic inspiration is given to free us from the stasis of dry patterns and unbearable party lines. I seek to understand and harness cause and effect, purpose and freedom in all things for all concerned. All else is slavery of the mind, body, and spirit. Games have rules. I like games. I like rules. Rules are to be broken, only when those rules no longer enforce the better or best case scenario. I am not an asslicker of unbridled chaos or random rulebreaking for its own sake. I seek peace. Peace is different things to different people. Understanding the equivalence of eternity and its demands among the personality orders and disorders is the function of the artist who seeks to destroy the slavery in which both society and the individual mind conspire to shackle us. To become a willing slave in a fate-endorsed situation of inequality (name the game) is to loosen its bonds, elevating the slave to a level perhaps even superior to that of the taskmaster. Jesus the Hammer taught this. To be a belligerent slave runs the risk of failing on all counts that the slave has been inspired to corrupt in following his false hopes of freedom, and his condition is worsened by rebellion, not eased. Geez, where is all this going? I suppose I am attempting an analysis of why the S&M, B&D culture has adherents on both sides of the equation, and why I feel capable of playing both roles. BECAUSE I SEE MYSELF IN UNIVERSAL TERMS. But I am here. Polaris is there. Neither slave nor executioner (Camus). American society forces most of us male and female into both roles in a wishy washy fashion without benefit of accreditation, and so most of us muddle through unaware of the implications as we dogpaddle through this soul-fracturing sea of emblematic garbage government, and frankly, its frisky twin sister, popular culture, have invested in us.

Lastly, I do not apologize for going on too long. I dig writing to you, and still can't get over the fact how prolific and witty you have proven to be. Thanks for coming to my rescue now that Steve has lost his account through negligence. He could have saved his old AOL accounts if he would have tried. A source of great pleasure to him, and archival purpose, he simply junked it by not showing up to his post-resignation interview with his boss. That interview is an AOL concoction lending them the sense that they really care why people quit the company. However, if AOL boots you, it is certain you should leave them to their own devices, and seek instead a regular Internet account, although yes, AOL is quite nice for beginners such as yourself. Internet chat is slow & tedious. The AOL versions are still amazing with speed and easy accessibility. AOL have contracted to upgrade to better third-party Web browsers. But first you need a 28.8 modem. Maybe I can help accelerate that day for you...

You mentioned mum & aunt this weekend. I thought the NYC fiasco and subsequent family feud had splintered that auntie thing, or is this a different aunt? Anywaze, have you learned to flashsession yet? This way you can check mail without being led astray by manually signing on. Nevertheless, I won't get worried if I don't hear from you in a few days, but if I am coming up during Sue's hiatus, it's next week, OR NOT...

1. First Light

He used to take advantage of me, at first. You had to fight. He was not mean but dominating. You had to fight. He would push you to the edge, point to it and laugh. He respected me for fighting, for my philosophy, my thoughts, and strength of my resolve not to break, and for my earnest heart in testing the reality he designed.

Me and X, or X and I developed a very special relationship where our friendship meant more than a job, sex, or even punk rock. It meant more than anything else I could think of, and I am good at thinking up things I just cannot touch. We used to hang out all night and we would just talk the paint off the walls. We'd still be talking long after the buzz of the evening had left us alone. He'd tell me about his experiences and I'd tell him about mine. In a situation like this you meet a lot of good paragraphs. Some of them remain your friends for life, and even if you can't remember all the words, you remember the kink.

When he saw me he was always real happy to see me like I was his next meal or the wedding of his fat daughter. I'll never forget this feeling he brought with him; one night we were walking along the broken glass and concrete mirrors and he said "it's almost like a movie, right." He said, "You know, a man meets a friend only once in a lifetime." That stays with me like the hiccups, even better. That quote is a great quote. It made me feel good that I had reached that height of wandering friendship and wondering humanity. It sealed the envelope, the blue envelope I carried in my back pocket as a reminder of the years he would never be near again.

2. Mental States

Most of these guys just need somebody to really chase time with them. I think all these guys can be reached if you know how to show them new suspense. Big Business throws all rejects from society into one pile and that's the ugly part of it. And only the mercurial survive. I've seen men lose their minds. Good men. Intelligent men. I've seen these men being chewed up alive, men losing their minds right before my eyes. After suffering conditions over and over again these sane people eventually become insane because of the degradation they recognize others find in themselves.

Many times I have cried, I'm not going to lie to you or to anyone else who thinks about why I am here and they are where they are. I have swung at the air. I have felt sorry for myself. It's not easy to be independent to continue serving our customers. As far as snapping, I've learned too much to snap. I can't really diagnose my own case, but I'm angry now and again. I've got a temper that's really bad, enough to scare the crows away. That's sort of new. Anger. That's the only thing that shivers me. Suppose I'm angry at the world. I might be sitting here talking cool and collected but...

I'm scared of myself at this point. Some of the things I had to do. I have busted people up, people close to me, people dear to me, people I've had to defy. I have begged, borrowed, and stolen the empty promises of others who act as if they hold clues to the upper deck, but let's face it, I didn't get this way climbing along the rusty rails of empty halls. And the anger that I have inside me, or still hanging from my shoulders makes me nothing more than a blue collar girl. I dance and gather stuff to line my pockets but I just snapped at one of the girls in dance class because at this point I'm spitting angry at the world, and she was just standing there, naked, dripping wet hair, no makeup but still looking prettier than me, and I'm no leftover shoe myself. But yeah, I'm climbing up and I'm looking good. It's all of that need to say that I am somebody that burns inside my belly. You're not going to walk over me. I'm going to survive. I'm fighting. But I'm fighting 'cause I'm angry. I'm scared of myself 'cause I wonder if I get up there one day will I be vindictive? Hitler was once in a homeless joint. This is the stuff that makes Hitlers. I hate to say it.

3. Poetry Is An Invasion Of Privacy

I want to feel better
So l write a poem
I don't care if it rhymes
If it's offbeat
Onbeat
Unpunctuated
Or misspelled
I just want to write a poem
So l can feel better
A poem is supposed to have moving images
Which stirs the senses
Well, the only images I see
Is blackness

Sadness
Unfairness
Martin
Malcom
Garvey
Kennedy
Nuisance
Revenge
Choking hands
Neck and mind braces
Starkness. Images that required reaction. That's what photographer Morton Hundley and I were looking for in October 1986. I had recently started a job as a social worker for the Homeless Services Unit of D.C.'s Downtown Cluster of Congregations, an ecumenical association of 24 downtown churches. He introduced himself to me, and offered to buy me a cup of coffee. I said okay and the next thing I knew we were looking at these pictures he'd brought, nicely tucked into a satchel that was worn and tattered around the edges. His pictures were black. I had to cry, and so I just got up and left the shop without looking back.

Nine days later. I don't remember writing this. Did I steal it? Somebody, ANYBODY, HELP ME PLEASE, IS THIS YOURS? DID I TAKE IT FROM YOU? I'M SCREAMING. ARE YOU STILL THERE?

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Quoth the Raven

"Intellectual economics guarantees that even the most powerful and challenging work cannot protect itself from the order of fashion. Becoming-fashion, becoming-commodity, becoming-ruin. Such instant, indeed retroactive ruins, are the virtual landscape of the stupid underground. The exits and lines of flight pursued by Deleuze and Guattari are being shut down and rerouted by the very people who would take them most seriously."